What?

SUPERSTORE is the search for the world’s best ‘new’ boutique. The Award is the first of its kind, offering new independent fashion retailers an international platform and an opportunity to join the farfetch.com online community.
Farfetch.com is looking to un-earth new hidden gems with unique concepts and exciting new products that we can then bring to you exclusively on farfetch.com.

Passing through the doors of the stately residence at Graanmarkt 13 in Antwerp is like entering someone’s home, but one where everything is for sale. Graanmarkt13 has been at the forefront of creative fashion, furniture, jewelry, and design objects since its opening in 2010. The store offers the perfect mix between established names and cutting-edge talents, not to mention their own stylish packaging, which displays a variety of quotes. The Graanmarkt address also features a welcoming restaurant and a flexible space for exhibitions and presentations, plus an outdoor terrace cafe which gives visitors a place to relax.

The boutique Cahier d’Exercices offers the city of Montreal a concept shopping experience that caters to the more modern and minimal side of fashion. Making its debut in 2011, the store highlights the best in delicate, feminine and avant-garde clothing from an international range of designers. In addition to a selection of high-end labels, Cahier d’Exercices also have great customer service where privacy, luxury and comfort reign supreme. This is accomplished through their massive fitting rooms with a mirrored alcove that ensure the customer is never totally exposed to the street, as well as offering private “by appointment only” shopping at any time of the day or night.

Having worked in the design industry for years, and with a boutique in LA already under her belt, Jade Lai decided to open up a New-York branch in 2010. With her subtle eye for high quality and understated design making for a well-curated array of ready-to-wear, objects and accessories, Lai’s lifestyle store also hosts exhibitions and retail installations as well as monthly events that support creative projects from local artists and friends. Through the range of labels that Creatures of Comfort carries, Lai tends to look for things that have integrity and can stand the fast pace of fashion. And on a more personal note, she likes to add, “we’re also funny and kind’.

Situated in Lamb’s Conduit Street – considered by many as one of central London’s most charming locations, Darkroom has become one of London’s top destinations for homeware and fashion accessories, with unique and hard-to-find pieces sourced from all over the world. Both from fashion backgrounds, best friends Lulu and Rhonda have also created their own label, and are continuously looking for ways to collaborate with designers – whether through exclusive collections or exciting events. The juxtaposition of scale and form also play an important part within the boundaries between art and design, one perfect example of this is a pouf that has been hand-knitted with giant wool, using broomsticks as knitting needles.

No stranger to racking up accolades, Belgium-born boutique Hunting and Collecting, has already won the Brussels Commerce Design Award this year for its efforts in retail architecture and interior design. Owners Aude Gribomont and Niels Radtke, consider the space as a blank canvas that is constantly evolving, with new ideas in decoration, atmosphere and retail experience. The store has become an interactive platform for all that is creative in Brussels, hosting bi-monthly events for everyone from Carven to Surface to Air and Topshop. The name of the store derives from Aude and Niels’ desire to hunt for a selection of emerging and established international brands – a mixture which they believe is relevant to today’s culture – and curate them in the up-and-coming creative capital that Brussels has become.

Originating as a hang-out for young creatives and DJs, Kokon to Zai gained a cult-like status following the opening of their first boutique in London in the early 1990s. This subsequently led to the opening of another store in Paris and the introduction of their own fashion label, KTZ. Owners Sasko Bezovski and Marjan Pejoski have spent ten years travelling the world as buyers and designers, resulting in an enviably eclectic collection of beautiful objects and design products, which they have now poured into a modern curiosity shop named Universal Providers, on Golborne Road in Notting Hill. The store, on the site of an old butcher’s, has all of the original Victorian thistle design tiles, and aims to broaden the focus of Kokon to Zai, with an extensive mix of lifestyle products that range from the affordable to the super desirable, along with the sought-after fashion labels they are known so well for.

Housed in an old factory building nestled among the Café culture of Le Marais in central Paris, Merci is a destination store, with its off-the-high-street location and unassuming used books and coffee shop façade – yet this young retailer still manages to see over 500,000 visitors per year. The store mixes together exclusive, and often bespoke designer fashion products with casual items, and vintage furniture with new generation interior designers – “luxury is not a matter of price or brand, but of attitude”, explains Managing Director, Jean Luc Colonna. The Merci concept store also has several restaurants, along with a homewear floor, a perfume laboratory and an ever-changing visual landscape. All profits also go towards helping underprivileged children in Madagascar.

Hatched as a gallery and events space, before establishing itself as one of East London’s premier underground spots for emerging fashion and creative talent, Primitive London brings an art-based approach to retail with a curated boutique of one-off pieces from up-and-coming designers, artists, musicians and publishers. Much of the clothing is sourced from unknown street-wear labels in Tokyo, where the owners Andrew Green and Lui Nemeth met, back in 2009, and is also the base for their next pop-up shop, following a successful launch at Voo in Berlin (another SUPERSTORE contender). The Primitive London space also regularly plays host to events, exhibitions and product launches for new brands, with Vice magazine’s Style Editor Daryoush Haj-Najafi, declaring: “…when a Primitive event is on I dare anyone present not to feel like they’re in the most fashionable place on the planet.”

This boutique is a shop within a shop, with the reason in the name – SPRMRKT Amsterdam is a converted supermarket changed for the better, with its combination of designer vintage, obscure luxury fashion, and high street brands. Founder Nelleke Strijkers has played many parts in the fashion industry, from model to designer to boutique owner, and she was also one of the first to champion now- popular fashion labels Acne, Gareth Pugh and Damir Doma. Her ethos is not to dress customers in head-to-toe designer outfits, but to create for them their own unique look, with an amalgamation that blends TOPSHOP with Rick Owens, and the store’s in-house knitwear brand SPRB, which is also stocked in the iconic French boutique, L’Eclaireur.

With an enticing emphasis on design, creativity and good craftsmanship, Voo breathes new life into Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, originally known for its alternative eateries and vibrant nightlife. The store offers a constantly rotating selection of ready-to-wear and designer objects, as well as gift ideas and books. Rather than focusing on short-lived trends, it focuses on pieces that have the potential to become prized possessions for life. Acting as a platform for music, design, fashion and art, VOO also organize and curate regular exhibitions, readings and concerts. AND they do great coffee too!

Showcasing the very best in men’s shoes and accessories, The Outpost is situated in the prestigious Passeig de Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona. With its muted lighting and impeccable, retro-chic décor, the boutique is likely to delight both style-savvy dandys, and interior design experts. The Outpost is dedicated to scouting out new trends for the contemporary man and the mix of different fabrics, styles and texture present in the store perfectly communicate this concept. Look up the figurative sense of outpost in the dictionary and you’ll find it to be “something regarded as a isolated branch”. Let’s just say that The Outpost definitely steps away from the crowd.

Situated on the western slopes of Mont Royal in Montreal, Canada, and cushioned between a charming array of fine grocers, florists and cafés – Want L’Apothicaire is a modern interpretation of a 19th-century pharmacy, but with a unique fashion twist. Combining narrowly distributed, yet highly desired style and beauty products, this concept store encourages patrons to fulfil their lifestyle wants and needs with essentials from Acne – as well as body-care brands Aesop and Astier de Villatte. Creators and twin brothers Byron and Dexter Peart (who also happen to be the brains behind luxury leather-goods brand Want Les Essentiels de la Vie) aim to emulate a neighbourly trust and personalised service reminiscent of a bygone era.